Primal CrossFitter's 2012 Journal

My Primal goals are to continue eating primally, get better at cooking primally and help my family and friends do the same.

My Crossfit goals for 2012 include getting muscle ups and handstand pushups, a sub 7min Fran time and to compete as often as possible.

My history is at the start of 2011 I was around 100kg (220lbs) at 194cm (6ft 4), basically no exercise through the last 4 years of university/college and generally eating and drinking whatever (SAD). I started trying to get in shape in Feb 2011 and frequented a gym through till June before moving from New Zealand to Australia. This is where I discovered CrossFit and subsequently Primal and Paleo living through other CrossFitters. I've been CrossFitting now for 6 months and eating primally for 5 and am determined in 2012 to engrain both of them into the rest of my life.

Now I sat down and wrote my goals yesterday and weighed in (92.5kg in the morning) and took some photos for Mark's New Years challenge. I will make a decent effort to journal my progress on a daily basis from now on to keep myself honest and motivated.

Right, here goes...

Yesteday 04/01/2012

B -

L -

S 1 chocolate at work my co-worker brought back from Hawaii (hard to say no, he looked so happy to be sharing them)

So yesterday I didn't get enough sleep, lack of sleep makes Leangains IFing hard as it drags the day out way longer. Being super tired also makes you not want to work out and you have a shit day at work and these 3 things combined puts you in a bad mood which makes you vulnerable to bad decisions and cravings for naughty food. SLEEP IS THE KEY.

On the plus side, yesterday morning I jumped on the scales and I was at 90.5kg, could it really be 2kg in 3 days? Maybe Leangains/Warrior diet really works, another week or so will tell.

The 18 hour fast is no longer much of an issue. I'm not hungry in the mornings and am only slightly hungry around lunch time. Today I think the only real hunger that kicked in was at about 3.30pm which would coinside with my normal feeding time of 4pm so i think its all about what you're body is used to and what it is expecting. I also feel less guilty about less paleo things like a Maxibon as I'm still seeing weight loss results either way. Its made me realise that Paleo/primal is more a way of thinking and that if the majority of my food is prepared and eaten this way then I should still reap the health benefits while the fasting may provide the majority of the results. Maxibon did kick my ass with a massive sugar high though. Got on the scales this morning and I was 89.5kg. Thats like 3kilos in less than a week.. I can't believe it. Will see what happens this week after a good weeks worth of CrossFit and whether fasted training will be better or worse.

Love mondays. Am always pumped for CrossFit as i've had Sunday off (or in this case fri, sat and sun). Did OLift instead of normal WOD as I want to get at much lifting in as possible before I go back to NZ for 2 weeks (no weight at the lake). Coach told me I can't push jerk till I get more overhead mobility so I'll focus on split jerk. Had a good practice at handstands and did some sneaky muscle up progression practice.

Warrior Diet/Leangains is easy to follow during the work week. Don't get home from gym till 7.30 so my window is only open between then and 9-10pm. Ate more than I needed to last nite but when its chicken and vegetables who cares. had to get up in the middle of the night to try and get rid of some, I was so full. Started reading a book about sleeping and sugar, made me want to get to bed earlier. Am pushing for 8 hours as much as possible, might just have to re evaluate my priorities and make time for an early night. Interesting that they state in the book that carb craving is a pre cursor to going to sleep, makes a lot of sense why you want sweets at night. Also got a physical and some blood tests booked in for when I get home which should be good to track progress in the future.

Feeding window- 8pm-8.30pm (The length of time to finish dinner)
Sleep 8 and 30 mins

Good day today, finally got a bit more productive at work. Didn't really get hungry at all except maybe at 4.30ish when I was thinking about working out. Thats a lie, I was reading my book in the food court and 4 guys sat next to me with Curry and it made me want some. Finally getting good rhythm with my double unders, should be good to test them out in a WOD soon. Thruster lifting was alright, didn't do as well as nick but. Think my Front Squat needs to get more explosive so I can transfer the weight to overhead easier. Bent over rows were weird but got them right at the end. Got told to keep my shoulder back and down, same as with deadlift. Need to remember this for deadlift too. Need to also remember awesome spiderman resistance stretch Jimmy showed us for future squatting events. Eating a whole chicken was awesome until about 20mins later when it was swirling around in my stomach. I haven't been shitting much lately so I don't know where its going, weighed in at 89 kilos today

Was kind of burnt out today, felt pretty good during the day, not really hungry although it was crazy hot which probably made me a bit tired. WOD today once again shed some light on my biggest weaknesses or what the Franks brothers call "Goats". These are Snatch, overhead squat and burpees.
This coupled with my lack of practice with a hook grip meant I felt like shit during the WOD and even managed to drop the bar on my quad resulting in a massive dead leg in the 3rd round. Burpees once again took me to that dark place in my head I don't like to go. I need to embrace the pain and get better at burpees, i've programmed 100 for time in next monday at the lake.
The book i've been reading "Lights out" states that tiredness and exhaustion are the pre-cursor to exessive carb consumption. While my intake of carbs wasn't excessive by normal standards its more than I normally have. Probably the only issue I have with the Warrior diet is that some nights like last night, you don't feel like cooking and you don't feel like eating alot post wod yet you know you need to. I didn't even feel like chocolate last night.

On a better note, I bought a sleep mask today and tried it out and my 8 and 1/2 hours sleep was in solid darkness. Was weird waking up in the pitch black and not knowing what time it is and having to rely on an alarm. Good but. On the scales this morning I was 88.5kg, thats 4kg in around a week. Crazy... I don't really know where the food goes either as I'm hardly shitting at all. On that note I'm going to buy some plums and prunes for desert tomorrow and see if I can get my digestion back up and moving. It could be that i'm just not producing as much waste (good thing) or my bodys got too much on its plate to worry about digestion (bad thing). No idea where that whole chicken went.

What a crazy day. Got super psyched up for bench press and decided I didn't want to do it fasted, had 3 plums in the last hour of work and some macadamias (was also aiming for some good natural laxatives). Reasonably happy with my Bench since I hadn't done it since May. Think I was robbed of a few kilos using a narrower grip (prefer wide grip) but first rule of CrossFit is listen to your coach. Smashed the whole packet of prunes (200g, 100 ish carbs of which 50 were sugar) to try and get my digestion hooning. Was kind of successful but not as much as I had hoped, have decided that the chicken must have mostly dissapeared. Anyway, the prunes and plums got my sweet tooth going and I made paleo cake and it turned out pretty good considering I substituted half the ingredients and kind of just made it up. A bit buttery though without the coconut oil. Then my flatmate shane said that he had ice cream in the fridge, and I was on a sugar rush so I had some. Too much sugar= too much energy= late night=lack of sleep=small weight gain (got on the scales in the morning and I was just under 90). Although it had to be done to see if it worked as a laxative mild success) and it was pretty much a once off.

Sad news too, my ps3 died. Will attempt open heart surgery tomorrow and hope for the best.
Good news, NZ on Saturday.
Will mean a lack of posting for 2 weeks but i'm determined to keep a diary and blog it later. Have shown Coach my programming and he's pretty happy with it with a few adjustments so hopefully i'll gain some fitness at the lake doing a lot of cardio and metcon plus WATERSKIING.

Ok so I'm back from NZ and have a computer and internet again, rather than re blogging the last 2 weeks i'll just sum up my time in NZ

Managed to stick with all my CrossFit training in week 1 on top of waterskiing twice a day. Week 2 I think I did one WOD but was skiing as much as I could each day.

Diet wise was a nightmare by primal/paleo standards and fasting went out the window. All my meals were Paleo and I made a point of having no rice pasta or bread but there were a lot of sweets and deserts on top of that and i'd say my sugar consumption would've been through the roof for the best part of 7days.

What I learnt from going back to High sugar, high carb SAD diet for 10 or so days.
I put on in excess of 5kg
The last 3 days I had a mild headache (first headache since July when I switched to paleo/primal)
I was bloated and had bowel movement like 3-4 times a day
My face is just starting to break out with some mild acne and my scalp has dried up and i'm getting a bit of dandruff.
I lost motivation for workouts

But thankfully thats over and i'm back on the right path. Sunday I went back to full paleo/primal but was still craving sweets in a big way, Monday I skipped breakfast to ease my way back into my daily fasting/warrior diet and today i've got right back into it. I'll begin my normal posting tomorrow with a recap of how today went.

I've learnt that fasting is a shit load easier at work then when on holiday, especially when on holiday you're surrounded by a lot of people eating plenty of holiday food and awesome neice and nephews that want to share all their treats with you and a brother that wants you to have a few beers with him every night.

I don't have any regrets from my 10 day sugar binge. Initially it was nice to enjoy all the sweets and dairy I had missed and later in my holiday it was good to feel how crap all that junk makes you feel and how in the long run sugary foods are just not worth it.

Lastly, the first day I got back to NZ I got my bloods done, My doctor got back to me saying that everything was fine and my cholesteral was particually good. I'm going to email him now to get the full results and will post them when I do.